Hawk-Eye technology will police the goal-line in Premier League

British-based, Sony owned tech is selected

Fifa may have plumped for a German system for its goal-line technology, but the Premier League has backed the British-based (but Sony-owned) Hawk-Eye ball tracking technology.

Football is trying to end the problem of contentious decisions over whether a ball has crossed the goal-line or not, and it is technology that will settle the argument.

Hawk-Eye will be rolled out in the English top-flight next season, and claims to be accurate to the millimetre.

Interestingly in a column on MSN UK, former referee Dermot Gallagher has called for the pictures to be shown on stadium big screens; adding his approval that the technology has been brought in.

Watching like a Hawk

"I wonder whether, as it is a statement of fact and no longer contentious, whether the same pictures could be transmitted to the big screens in grounds so match spectators could also see the images," wrote Gallagher.

"No longer will the referee be at risk of seeing a still picture of a ball over the line on the back page of a newspaper the next day, with blame pointed at him and his assistants. I know from bitter experience how that feels...ten years on I can tell you it would not be an experience I would wish on myself or any of my colleagues ever again."

Of course, had the technology been implemented in 1966 it might well have cost England a World Cup, but on the other hand, it might have prompted an England comeback in 2010 against Germany in the World Cup, with Frank Lampard's shot bouncing clearly over the line.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Global Editor-in-Chief

Patrick (Twitter) is Global Editor-in-Chief for techradar, and has been with the site since its launch in 2008. He is a longstanding judge of the T3 Awards, been quoted or seen on everything from the The Sun to Sky News and is on the #CoolBrands Council. He started his career in football, making him one of approximately one journalists to have covered both a World Cup final and an iPhone launch.